Theatre Lesson : (Aug'15) Le Théàtre de Jaques Lecoq

My attention returns to my body. I start to feel the structure of my body. Initially wondering consciousness traverse back and I realize a vibration in me. I hear poundings in me. Strong pulses, my heart is palpitating. From the centre of my form, I can feel the vibration spreading out, rippling like waves towards my limbs. My consciousness stretches out towards my partial paralyzed legs and arms.

I have fingers, and toes. And if i will it enough to move, slowly it moves. They are stiff. I can feel the friction whilst separating the formerly in-contact skin on my fingers and my toes. And I move, more, faster, and in larger in action... I raised my hands above my head and I stretch further. I can feel my spine lengthen; vertebra by vertebra from my lower back towards my neck. I'm becoming longer, and longer. At one point, my body is so tense, and then i relax my muscles, and I open my eyes. A blinding white light flashes in front of me, my eyes strained and I close them again for a few seconds. I open them, and blink. I can feel that the veins or whatever structure that is holding the back of my eyes in the eye socket contract and then relax. I stare into the white lights above me.

"Am I a new born baby, a tabula rasa?... Maybe not." I find myself having a monologue. Then, I get the feeling that i just came out from a surgical theatre. The white lights, so blindingly glaring, are like those lights in the operation theatre. I raise my hands, close to my eyes. I can see the lines, the wrinkles on them. I flex my fingers, like how a puppeteer would do a marionette (but at that moment, i wasn't thinking about anything, just curious!)

Using my arms, I support my body into sitting position. I look around me and try to absorb everything into my mind. I realize that I'm sitting on a rough but quite soft surface - it's a floor carpet. I notice a yellow spherical object a few metres in front of me. I crawl towards it and poke it. It's not hard but it's elastic. Springy. And i experimented with it like a child, receiving his very first ball.....

The neutral mask

In this chapter of Theatre class, I learn the concept of Neutrality. Lecoq describes the training of an actor as an effort to become a blank piece of paper, without any knowledge or preconceptions about the world, but with the potential to do of become anything. Personally, I don't feel too difficult to get into the state of "partial" neutrality. (I put it that way because I'm still skeptical about the fact that we can be entirely neutral and pure, and innocent just with that short time of practice. But no doubt, we can reach that level of transcendence with practices!!) One of the way that I opted to proceed nearer into the state of neutrality is by possessing the curiosity if a newborn baby. I know that it might sound hard and unconvincing, but in my opinion, one way to maintain the curiosity is by constantly remember oneself in life that we don't know everything. Even if we know an object, we should know that we don't everything about that object, and therefore, with that perception in mind, we would have the inquisitiveness to ask for more experiences, be it sensory or emotional, like a kid. We would have to let go of our ego and return to our humble self; in search of the inner child. One would scarcely believe that a grown-up will do goofy childish stuff. Yet, like a forgotten fire in the glowing ash of a coal, curiosity can always flare up inside us.

Character Masks

Larval Masks

For those who wish to proceed further with the concept of neutrality, Ms Val suggested further research in the use of masks, We have the neutral mask - an expressionless mask . How would such a mask could be a tool used in actor training? Maybe in some way, the mask could help the actor focuses more on his/ her body gestures first before including facial expression into the conveyance of message through theatre. By putting on a mask or a neutral face, one tends to put more attention towards the body and movements I suppose. Apart from neutral mask, we also have Character masks and Larval masks. For all mask, I believe, it helps an actor, especially beginners like us, to pay more attention to the other parts of the body, and to fully utilize the body parts express the actor's creative and intuitive response to the character he or she wants to portray. Putting on a mask is like putting on an identity. The actor achieve neutrality by not revealing his/ her own self . With neutrality, one should be able to prevent the play character having the personality, behaviors, habitual actions, signature movements of the actor.

Apart from neutrality, I also discovered one's tendency of showing personal attachment towards object(s) at the first sight in one's transition into the neutral state. In most scenario, curiosity and inquisitiveness as well as limitless imagination are the major factors contributing to such as inclination. In my case, the long, plain, purplish cardinal, silky cloth that I played with, later became one of the prominent tool I utilized in the further exploration of this chapter.

(September 2015) CAS Reflection : 2 - MPU Merdeka Celebration Project

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme Students taking picture with Ms Lauren, the Principal of TCSH

Event Proposal   :              MPU Merdeka Celebration Project

Objectives          :             

To show visually and aid in the understanding of what it means to live in harmony within a multicultural context.

Activity Description         :

As a Malaysian born citizen we are all familiar with the concept of a multicultural society. We are all individual with a different perspective of the world yet we are connected to each and every one by a “string of fate”. Inevitably this also means that for every action that we partake we must also be aware that we are affecting the other individual of the group which we are connected to. Recently the issue of racial disharmony has been creeping up in the media and in lieu of the country’s vision of Wawasan 2020, we are proposing a short play that will carry a strong message for the youth that is present in the college. 

Time                     :             

August 2015

Location              :             

Taylor’s College Sri Hartamas (TCSH)

Supervisor          :             

Mr Anthony William, MPU teacher TCSH

Goal                     :   

• ·       Work collaboratively with new friends from different racial, ethnical, and cultural background, or even making friends with international students regardless of nationality, race, languages, culture, habits, etc.
• ·        Resonates the extraordinary aura of teamwork, and comradeship.
• ·        Delegate jobs.
• ·        Be aware of my weakness.
• ·        Able to take everyone's opinion into consideration.

Impact                 :

• ·        Raise awareness about LOVE TOWARD THE COUNTRY, especially among the teens
• ·        Action speaks louder than words.
• ·        I am aware of my shortcomings, which includes the ineffectiveness in communication can cause lots of problems. I have to hone my skills in effective communication to avoid misunderstanding.
• ·        A great experience which taught us all the importance of teamwork and friendship.
• ·        What I hope to learn/ gain:

• Organizing and planning skills
• Performing Skills
• Effective Time Management

Timeline              :             

18^TH – 24^TH August 2015

Meeting, planning and having discussion among groups. Delegation of roles

25^TH – 26^TH August 2015

Kolam designing and making

27^TH August 2015

Rehearse the “Satu Malaysia” song with the International Students

28^TH August 2015

MPU Merdeka Celebration day

Cas Reflection:

This Merdeka Celebration event was one of our MPU project for year 2015. It was planned and initiated by us, the international Baccalaureate Diploma Programme Students of Taylor’s College Sri Hartamas batch 2015-2017. First of all, what we had to do was brainstorming. We divided ourselves into three groups as we planned to do three different activities. We are all different culturally and individually. Difference is not a sign of weakness, it is of strength. It is the understanding and respect of the presence of others that will lead us to harmony and not unity.

Throughout  the whole Merdeka Celebration, I took part in quite a number of different activities in celebrating the 58^th Independence Anniversary of our nation, Malaysia. First of all, about three days before the event day, which was the 28^th of August 2015, I helped out another group of friends of mine to design and make the Satu Malaysia kolam at the corridor along the main entrance Taylor’s College Sri Hartamas. I was living in Puncak Prima Condominium, the school hostel just next to the campus, so I offered to come down to the campus and help out at night. Initially, the kolam only consisted of three main parts – the Satu Malaysia symbol and the national flower of Malaysia, the Hibiscus, and the Taylor’s College Logo. We managed to complete that Kolam in just one night. Kudos to the Kolam Team. The Kolam was really attractive. It was radiant with many colours. The second night, we made some alterations and we ended up adding more features to the Kolam. We added a famous landmark of Malaysia, the Petronas Twin Towers, and the wording of “Merdeka58 @TCSH”. We were so addicted to Kolam making and could stop adding more details on our craftwork. In the end we have the as well as #SEHATISEJIWA on the Kolam. From the experience of this Kolam making session, I truly felt that aura of teamwork and friendship inundating me in the most sanguine way possible. It was so touching, seeing so many people working collaboratively, putting in the best hand-in-hand for the ultimate result.

Figure 1 : The kolam on the first night. 

Figure 2 : The Kolam Team and I

Figure 3 : The Kolam Team

Fgure 4 : The Kolam with the Petronas Twins Towers..

Figure 5 : The Final Artwork!

 On the day itself, Quin and I led the international students of our intake to sing a patriotic song. The international students, Kumar (from Singapore), Akash and Rina (from India) had chosen the song “Satu Malaysia”, a famous song originally sang by a choir of Malaysia singers. It was quite an experience to sing the Malay song with them, in front of the crowd. I was proud that they were willing to celebrate the Independence Day of Malaysia without prejudice and sang a song that represented racial unity, tolerance and dedication towards the country. Seeing them singing happily on the stage with us, I felt touched. Such an experience make me realize the importance of togetherness without any form of discriminations. I would like to urge all the teenagers in this world to step out and make a difference for their country. I tend to hear, from many teens from various background, saying that they do not think that they can do anything for the world. Yet, I realized that we actually can. First of all, we have to get rid of the negative mindset that errs our judgement, that is, as young as we are we literally do not have a voice. In fact, we have voices, if and only if, we voice out together. By doing a small measure on our own, those small steps by us as an individual, can sum up to be a big change.

Lasty, after the singing of "Satu Malaysia" song, I participated in the Merdeka Play, Ginger, Janet, Jemmima, Quin and I were the actors in the play. The play however did not turn up very well. We barely contrived to send out our main messages, partially owing to the not-so-strategic venue of the play itself. Another fault of the play was that we did not have enough time to rehearse the play. We were all theatre students and we thought it would be alright for us to do an ad lib performance, since we just learnt about improvisation in our previous theater lesson.  At the end of the day, we need to reflect upon the mistakes we made that contributes to the making of our nearly failed Merdeka play. I admit that I had spent too much of my time practicing the singing with the international students and had kind of neglected the play. I learnt that I should learn and practice effective time management in a bid to avoid hindering other plans in the future.

           

            All in all, the Merdeka Celebration was a success. It was quite an enriching experience, working collaboratively with new friends and getting to know different cultural backgrounds across the state border and even the international border. In the name of globalization, there’s no boundary that would stop us from learning from each other.

Figure 6 : the IB1 students can hardly hide their excitement on the event day.

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Figure 7 : The teachers and the staff taking selfie in the Malaysia Traditional Costumes